


Bits and Bobs

by vertual



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: From various fic challenges, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt Fill, Sherlolly - Freeform, featuring the Watsons and some other friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertual/pseuds/vertual
Summary: Because I keep forgetting to put those little sherlolly prompt fills together.





	1. A Good Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From anon on tumblr for the "things you said" meme - #1, things you said at 1am

She’s never been one to throw a door closed behind her, but considering the time of night, Molly takes even more care to shut the door quietly, pushing it firmly until she hears the click of the bolt sliding back in place. It’s the same ritual after every afternoon shift: she tosses her bag onto the chair a few feet away, toes off her shoes and places them on the mat, and hangs her coat on the hook behind the door before padding quietly through her unlit apartment. The dim orange light from the street lamps outside casts enough of a glow that she can see the dark shape of the heavy wool coat tossed over the back of her sofa. _Of course he’s here._

It’s mostly habit and courtesy that have her creeping through her own home to avoid waking him. When she reaches her bedroom he’s exactly where she expects him to be, curled up under her duvet facing away from her with Toby snoring in a ball beside his head. The alarm clock on “her” side tells her it’s just before one in the morning; only ten hours until she starts all over again. She throws on her pyjamas and slides into bed, leaving enough space for her guest and her cat and still finding a comfortable spot in seconds.

 _It’s nice when this happens_ , she thinks, already dozing off. No need to use her imagination to fall asleep. Just the rhythmic hum of her own breathing, Toby’s, Sherlock’s…

“Do you think he knows he’s a good boy?”

Molly snaps upright with a curse, clutching her chest as she turns to glare at the man who dared to scare the hell out of her in the middle of the night. “I thought you were asleep!” she hisses, feeling another stab of annoyance when Sherlock sits up not to look at her but to watch the startled cat flee the room. “To be honest, I don’t particularly care if he knows he’s a good boy because at least I know he’s the good boy out of the two of you!” To run it home, she picks up her pillow and whacks Sherlock with it before throwing herself back down onto it with the grumpiest expression she can muster.

Her guest follows suit, lying back down with his hands tucked underneath his own pillow.

“ _Do_ you think he knows, though?” he insists, asking more quietly this time. “You say it to him quite often, but it’s not as if cats understand English.”

“Yes, Sherlock, I do think he knows,” Molly grumbles.

“Why?”

“Because he’s a cat and cats already think they’re the best, just like certain unnamed detectives.”

“Mm, I understand.” He’s quiet for a moment and Molly starts to hope he’s fallen asleep when he adds, “Dimmock really does fit the criteria, doesn’t he?”


	2. First Rule

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From mizjoely on tumblr for the "things you said" meme - #20, things you said that I wasn't meant to hear

Three hours of sleep one night normally wasn’t much of a problem for Sherlock, but to be fair, those three hours normally weren’t spent on his best friend’s sofa following a long night of repeatedly making bad decisions. The same bad decision, to be precise.

“If it were anyone else I’d be surprised,” John sighs, setting two mugs of coffee down on the kitchen table before sitting down opposite Sherlock. “I’m not upset that you broke into my house past two in the morning‒”

“Mary was.”

“Picking the lock while she was downstairs with Rosie was your mistake. You’re lucky if she hasn’t gone out to get Molly.”

“Molly’s the reason I didn’t go home,” Sherlock grumbles. He wraps his hands around the coffee cup, enjoying the warmth radiating through the ceramic into his hands and all but erasing the dull pain lingering in his split knuckles. He might have gotten away with his… shenanigans… if his face wasn’t similarly red and purple.

“Molly should have been the reason for you to turn around and walk out of that bloody warehouse,” John says sharply. “Honestly, just because you were checking out some mad underground fight club didn’t mean you had to _participate_!”

“Clearly you don’t know the eighth rule. Or the first two. I can list them if you’d like.”

“Dammit, Sherlock, this isn’t funny!” Trouble abound: John inhales deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand and nearly crushing his coffee cup with the other. “If I believe you on the eighth rule ‒ because I have seen _Fight Club_ , thank you very much ‒ how do you expect to explain to your hawk-eyed girlfriend why you’re that beaten and exhausted from one fight?”

“I won,” Sherlock says simply. “And then I won again.” It wasn’t a complicated affair; he was tossed in as a new face and made quick work of the fight before going back to exploring the makeshift base. He was on his way out when they pulled him back into the circle, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t find it fun. Three bouts last night. Some broken skin and a handful of bruises of various diameters were the only negative results of his evening. “What do you want me to tell her? ‘I was investigating the questionable participants in a large fight club in the middle of the city, I went in, I hit people and got hit, I had fun doing it’?”

It takes a moment for Sherlock to notice John looking past him instead of at him; he turns slowly in his seat, wincing slightly, to face the woman standing behind him, hands on hips and scowl on face. Behind her, Mary Watson, leaning against the door frame with a frown of her own.

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Molly mocks. “How much of that did you want me to hear?”

“Probably none of it,” John puts in. Sherlock throws him a glare and he holds his palms up in surrender, although there’s still a smirk on his face, matched by his wife when Sherlock turns back to Molly.

He almost wants to be swallowed by the floor. He’s not afraid of her so much as he is of disappointing her; it took years of doing well by Molly to earn enough points to even think about asking her to dinner, and he did not plan to lose those points this morning. At least he knew what he could do to start making up for his night out….

“I’ll clean the fridge when we get home.”


	3. A Bit Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From gettingovergreta on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #130, "You fell asleep in the tub?!"

Molly lets out a sigh when the doors finally open, the few invitees turning in their seats to follow her gaze as Sherlock and John come running up the aisle to take their places. She sees John throw an apologetic expression to the small crowd, Greg’s thumbs-up and Mycroft’s scowl at his brother while Caro tries to be subtle in handing Meena a tenner for losing the bet she’d been suckered into. When she turns to Sherlock, Molly sees the look of shame on his face as he straightens his tie and the yellow carnation in his breast pocket.

“Sorry,” he mumbles over and over again until he decides he’s ready to look up at her and bear her rage. He lightens up when he sees her smiling at him instead and takes a moment to look her up and down quickly with a grin of his own. “You look beautiful, Molly.”

“Keep fluffing me up and I’ll let myself forget you were late to your own wedding,” she says warmly. “I figured you would take a case at the last minute. You seemed nervous yesterday morning.”

“No case,” he admits. “I didn’t sleep last night and thought a warm bath might calm the nerves. I suppose it worked.”

Her smile falters as she looks up at her husband-to-be and his still-damp hair. He avoids her gaze by turning to the minister and giving his okay to start, so she looks past him to John, who just shrugs.

“So you weren’t out chasing criminals for the good of the country and you were late because you fell asleep in the tub?!” she whispers.

Sherlock bites his lips and glances at his feet. “Yes.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she says through a stifled giggle.

He looks back up at her with the big crinkle-eyed smile that makes her toes warm. “Marry me anyway? No time like the present.”


	4. Seeing Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From elennemigo on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #95, "You're cute when you're all worried."

“Have you got everything?”

“Yes.”

“Laptop?”

“Yes.”

“Chargers? Adapters?”

“Yes.”

“Both?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Currency?”

“I know what to—”

“Ticket?”

“Yes! God, you’re worse than Dad!”

Sherlock huffs and spins his goddaughter by her shoulders to look through the pockets of her backpack, the giant bag stretching halfway to her knees nearly causing her to tip over with the movement. “Are you _sure_ you haven’t forgotten anything?”

“Stop it!” Rosie complains, stepping away and turning back round. She shoots Molly a beseeching look, very visibly begging her to intervene. “Tell him I’ll be all right, Aunt Molly.”

“He’s almost done,” Molly assures her, raising a brow at Sherlock when she spots him shuffling forward again. “He just wants to make sure you’re more than ready so your dad can’t hit him if you’re not.”

“Would it be rude to say I wish he’d been here instead?”

“Your father would have sent you off with a neon sign pointing to your pockets,” Sherlock grumbles. He frowns at the milling crowd as the boarding call comes through the speakers above them before turning back to Rosie. “Don’t forget to call when—”

“When I get there, when I check in, and every night before bed. I know.”

“Good.” He places his hands on her arms again, checking the buckles of her bag once more before pulling her into a tight hug. “See you soon, honeybee.”

“You too,” she says, her voice muffled against his shoulder. When he reluctantly pulls away, she turns to Molly for another hug. She kisses her goddaughter’s cheek and sways with her for a moment, keeping her close.

“You know he’s just worried about you,” she murmurs. “It’s your fifteenth year of being two for him.”

“Yeah.” Rosie steps back with a smile, her round cheeks and blond curls making her look more like her mum than ever. She gives the pair of them a small wave and makes her way to her carriage, turning around to hold up her train ticket lest Sherlock try to remind her about it once again. “Tell Dad, don’t forget to bring me something from Scotland. I’ll leave him out of my souvenir list if he doesn’t.”

“Promise,” Molly says. “Be good.”

Rosie turns away with a smile and boards the train, leaving her godparents on the platform, one smiling and one frowning. Molly sidles up to Sherlock and takes his arm, pinching his cheek with her free hand.

“You’re cute when you’re all worried,” she tells him. “You know she’ll be back in a few weeks.”

“Mm.” He looks around again, watching the train fill and the crowd disperse. Then his eyes widen and he pulls out his phone, tapping in Rosie’s number and bringing the phone to his ear. “Did you remember your passport?”

She’s fairly certain the people ten feet away heard the shouted _YES_ from the other end.


	5. Balancing Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From rooneykmara on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #86, "Am I scaring you?"

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

If he hadn’t seen her coming he might have dropped his precious cargo, but as it is, the acrobat remains confidently vertical in his hand, smiling with plump cheeks and shiny little teeth.

“I should think that was clear,” Sherlock replies calmly, holding a hand up for Rosamund to slap it in a tiny high-five from her perch. She wobbles slightly on his other hand as she does it, but stays standing easily, unafraid of falling to the sofa a few feet below. “We’re working on her balance.”

“You can work on her balance from the _floor_ , Sherlock! What made you think holding her like that was a good idea?”

He glances at Molly to gauge her expression, which is decidedly an unimpressed one, before turning back to assess Rosamund’s skill. Her little feet are firmly planted in his palm as he holds her in the air, high enough to be exciting but not so high that she could fall and hurt herself.

“Am I scaring you?” he asks the toddler, tilting his hand back and forth and watching her face while she tries to stay up. When she succeeds, he steadies his hand and turns back to Molly where she stands in the doorway, still in her big brown coat. “Am I scaring _you_?”

“Yes!” she shouts, dropping her bag and walking around the coffee table to hold her hands out behind Rosie’s back. “Put her down!”

Sherlock sighs and looks back to Rosie. “Sorry, dear.” He places his other hand on her side and brings her down, letting her drop onto the sofa with a bubbly laugh. “Aunt Molly doesn’t know how to have fun.”

“I do know how to have fun! I just know how to be _safe_ about it!”

“‘Uncle Sherlock is fun and Aunt Molly is boring.’ Can you say that, Rosie?” His goddaughter simply smiles at him, holding her hands out to be picked up again. He looks up at Molly, putting on an innocent face as he picks her up to balance her on his hand once again. “She knows what she likes, it seems.”


	6. Cuddly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From mizjoely on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #92, "You're so clingy, I love it."

One thing Molly absolutely did not expect from a relationship with Sherlock was how _cuddly_ he could be. She’d assumed, at the beginning, that their arrangement would amount to little more than shy touches and cheek kisses for the first month at least, but once he realised she was serious about giving him the time of day, he had thrown himself in with unexpected enthusiasm and had gone from zero to sixty in the area of affection. It was a wonder they were able to keep it so effectively under wraps when he had a habit of stopping her for a kiss on his way into and out of the morgue or standing behind her chair with his arms draped over her shoulders while she worked at the microscope in the lab.

Her favourite by far is when they lie on the sofa together, because the moment he sees her lounging, he takes it as an invitation to crawl half on top of her and cling to her like a cat. She’s never had a boyfriend so content to use her boobs as a pillow with no motive other than to be close to her. And of course, she is always happy to have the opportunity to play with his hair while they watch whatever’s on TV at the time.

“Cuddly,” she says, smiling widely and scratching at the curls of his nape.

“Not cuddly,” he says with a yawn. “I’m just here for the neurotransmitters.”

“That’s what it’s all about. Honestly, Sherlock, you’re so clingy. I love it.”

He raises his head and looks up at her curiously for a moment before returning to his pillow.

“Me too,” he says.


	7. Found Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From writingwife-83 on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #61, "They didn't just find out. They already knew!"

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” he says, his tone somewhere between a whine and a pout. As contentedly as he has been helping her clean up his flat, she’s surprised he hasn’t tried to pull her into cancelling their plans for a night out— _Wait, there it is,_ she thinks when she feels him come up behind her and wrap his arms around her shoulders. He’s trapped her facing the mirror in the main room and she frowns at his reflection as he rests his chin on top of her head. “Please can we not do this?”

“We’re going out tonight, Sherlock,” she tells him steadfastly. “You’re going to enjoy a drink and pub food with your friends, and then you can come home and be a hermit.”

“Can’t I just _stay_ home and be a hermit?” He emphasises his request by nuzzling her just below the ear where he _knows_ she is just ticklish and not at all stimulated. Nothing but a transparent attempt to annoy her into surrendering. “Please can I stay home, Molly? You can stay too.”

She scrunches her neck and does her best to wriggle free, but his determination is something else; the squeak she lets out when she feels his teeth only makes him laugh against her skin and continue his onslaught. Any attempts to pull his arms or shove his face away seem to just reinforce him, and within moments they are on the floor, she squirming in his grasp while he continues to nibble at her neck repeating his plea to be released from the obligation of social time.

“No!” she gasps between panicked giggles. “Stop it, stop it! You can’t make me say it!”

“Say what?”

Molly freezes and looks up to where the voice came from, smacking Sherlock’s face when he bites her again. He makes a complaining noise before pulling away from her neck – keeping his arms firmly around her – and looking up. “Oh. Hello, John.”

“Hey,” John says slowly, taking in their situation with wide eyes. “Greg’s just downstairs saying hello to Mrs H and Mary’s…”

“Hi!”

“Oh God,” Molly groans, covering her face with both hands. Somehow she knew keeping their new relationship to themselves wouldn’t turn out, but this… This is another level of embarrassing. To have their friends find out by discovering them in a heap on the floor… She peeks out from between her fingers and looks up at the Watsons with a weird feeling of guilt pulling at her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this.”

“No need for apologies,” Sherlock says behind her.

“There is a need! We’ve been hiding this from them for months! And now we’re found out _and you’re not even giving me the chance to get up!”_

“He’s right, though,” John says as Mary pulls out her phone to snap a photo.

“What?”

“Honestly, Molly,” Sherlock says haughtily, “you’re far more intelligent than this. They didn’t _just_ find out. They already knew!”

“Knew what?” Greg asks as he sidles up behind John and Mary to look down at them, still on the floor, still attached. “Oh. Hey, Molly. Thought we’d be picking you up on the way.”


	8. Orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From stlgeekgirl on tumblr for the drabble challenge - #105, "You can't make up for it by giving me a tic-tac."

He wakes slowly, naturally, once again roused by the sun tossing its light through the window at just the right angle to prompt his brain to switch on for the day. And once again, he isn’t ready to get up just yet, because before anything else, he wants to take a moment to appreciate the morning.

Rolling onto his side, he gets comfortable and simply watches. His eyes take in every inch of the sleeping face, the strands of hair that float forward and back with each breath, the twitch of her cheeks as she comes closer to waking. He reaches out and brushes the tips of his fingers against the side of her face, passing over the relaxed wrinkles giving him smiles he’s actually earned.

Still mostly asleep, she scowls and grunts and burrows deeper into her bunch of blankets before returning to her peaceful state.

“It’s half nine, Molly,” he says quietly, reading the large, ornate clock on the far wall of their hotel room. “Check out is at eleven.”

“Then we can stay another night,” she mumbles.

“You said you wanted to move on.”

Molly heaves a great sigh and cracks her eyes open to give him an annoyed look. “You said I can ask for whatever I want on this trip. Don’t get me wrong, after everything that’s happened, I’m delighted you decided you can’t make up for it by giving me a Tic-Tac. But what I want right now is to go back to sleep.”

“Sounds very wakeful for –”

Sherlock snorts out a laugh when the back of Molly’s hand taps him halfheartedly on the nose. Shuffling forward, he pulls on the blankets so he can settle in close to feel her warmth outdoing the sun.

“All right, then,” he concedes, pressing his forehead to hers. “Sweden for another day.”

With a happy hum, Molly shuts her eyes and is soon back to her dead sleep. Moments later, Sherlock joins her, uncaring of the surcharge that will end up on his credit card for the day.

It’s worth it for this.


End file.
